


Santa, Bring My Baby Back to Me

by oyhumbug



Category: Sons of Anarchy
Genre: Adoption, Angst, Child Abandonment, Christmas Eve, Colorado, Drama, F/M, Family, Gun Violence, Holidays, Love, New Year's Eve, One Shot, Romance, Running Away, Setting: Nineteen Years After Tara Left Charming, Sex, Smut, alternative history, christmas day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:15:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28456677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oyhumbug/pseuds/oyhumbug
Summary: It has been nineteen years since Tara Knowles left Charming and Jax Teller behind for college, for a career, for just... more. A world-class surgeon in Denver, Colorado, her life is her work, and work is her entire life... at least until a precocious, matchmaking eight year old shows up out of nowhere, determined to give his Dad love and himself a Mom and a family for Christmas.
Relationships: Abel Teller & Gemma Teller Morrow, Abel Teller & Jax Teller, Gemma Teller Morrow & Jax Teller, Jax Teller & Original Child Character(s), Jax Teller & SAMCRO, Tara Knowles & Abel Teller, Tara Knowles & Gemma Teller Morrow, Tara Knowles & Original Child Character(s), Tara Knowles & SAMCRO, Tara Knowles/Jax Teller
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	Santa, Bring My Baby Back to Me

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Holidays, everyone! There are two things to note about this story. The first is that it is not a reworked, condensed version of either of the full-length fics I've been writing. This piece is completely separate, a fluffy (for Jax/Tara) departure for the holidays. Secondly, I have been intentionally vague about some of our favorite (Opie) and some of the more important (Clay) characters from the show, because I did not want to bog this story down with club history, though there are very subtle hints as to what might have happened to these characters. If nothing else, certain omissions pretty much tell you all you need to know. Anyway, as always, I hope you like it. Enjoy!
> 
> ~Charlynn~

**Santa, Bring My Baby Back to Me  
** **A Jax and Tara Holiday One Shot**

**Thursday, December 22nd, 2016**

Tara was just beginning her fourteenth hour of a double shift when she heard a voice.   
  
_The_ voice.  
  
 _That_ voice.  
  
“Hi, Tara.”  
  
Her whole body stiffened, and her senses somehow both became hyper aware and completely oblivious. Around her, the busy hospital narrowed down to just that doorway. She could no longer hear the droning monotone of pages over the intercom system, yet she could hear breathing - her own suddenly elevated and choppy, a shade away from panic, whereas _the voice’s_ breathing was cool, calm, and collected. Tara started to sweat, and she could smell it. As she slowly, hesitantly, yet somehow also eagerly pivoted around, clutching her charts to her chest so tightly she could feel the indents forming along the sensitive, delicate skin of her hands, the overhead lights above her dimmed, but her eyes started to sting at the sheer brightness before her - the white-blonde of a desert sun; the startling, electric blue of a gas flame; the fresh and untainted hope of youth.  
  
The last time Tara Knowles had heard _that_ voice, she’d been a child herself. It was long before San Diego, Chicago, and now Denver. It was before med school, college, even high school. It was before jail cells, tattoos, and motorcycles. It was before Jax… at least, before Jax became hers. When Tara last heard _that_ voice, she and Jax had just been friends - two innocent, naive kids who didn’t know what life or love had in store for them. Consequently, there was no reason why Tara should remember it so clearly and yet… there was nothing she would _ever_ forget about Jax Teller.   
  
Perhaps if Tara wasn’t so accustomed to long hours and the exhaustion that came with it, she might have looked at the young boy standing across from her and believed her eyes to be seeing something more fantastical than just her ex’s kid. But fourteen hours was nothing. In the past, during her internship and then residency, Tara had gone days without proper sleep. She was wide awake and in complete control of her faculties and sanity… if not a little astonished and caught off guard.   
  
She tried to muster a small smile for the boy, but she simply wasn’t capable of it. Although to the casual observer the child would have seemed at ease - standing there with hands shoved into the front pockets of his jeans while he leaned against the doorjamb, Tara could see what the rest of the world would miss: those hands hidden away were being clenched into fists with every breath the kid took, and those wide eyes - so stunningly blue and framed by such long, light lashes - were spasming without a discernable pattern yet frequently enough to signal stress and fear. Tara wondered in both anticipation and anxiety where his father was, but if she was going to make it out of this confrontation with her composure intact, then she’d need to face one ghost at a time.   
  
“Hello,” she finally returned the child’s greeting. But she didn’t treat him like a kid. She didn’t bend down to stand more at his level, and Tara didn’t modulate her voice to round out its edges like so many other adults did when speaking with children. “You must be Jax’s son.”  
  
With those five words, she watched as the boy’s entire countenance seemed to collapse. “Oh,” he sighed - shoulders drooping, eyes losing some of their excited shine, the corners of his mouth falling into a tired, disappointed, though not surprised frown. “You don’t know me.”  
  
Not only did this child sound like Jax, he was her ex’s mirror image, his face and form taking Tara back in time nearly three decades. There was no doubt in her mind that he was Jax Teller’s son, yet her recognition still seemed to dishearten him… like mere recognition wasn’t enough. In fact, he had lamented the fact that Tara didn’t _know_ him as though he somehow expected her to be able to see through time and physical and emotional distance to be aware of his life, his name, him.   
  
“I’m sorry,” Tara offered the boy genuinely. She started to reach a hand out in comfort but then thought better of it, curling her fingers back into themselves and shrinking back a further step. “I’m not sure why or how you thought I would….”  
  
“Dad has pictures of you,” he interrupted her. Wincing, it was like the child didn’t want to hear how little of a role Jax still played in her life. “From before. He keeps them up in his room. He doesn’t have even a single picture of my Mom. When I asked him about you, he told me.”  
  
Despite herself, Tara couldn’t help but grin at the knowledge that, even twenty years and a heartbreak later, she still mattered to Jax. It was a crooked grin as she fought off the tears the boy’s words brought to her mossy gaze, but it was genuine. Then Tara recalled some of those photos herself… and the memories they triggered, and she worried, “what exactly did your Dad tell you?” And then she looked over her shoulders… as if expecting Jax to be standing behind her, smirking at her discomfort.   
  
But he wasn’t there.  
  
“He told me everything,” Jax’s son boasted. And, wow, in his ego, in his confidence, could Tara hear his father! It made her breath catch in her throat. “He told me about how much he loves you, how proud he is of you.”  
  
Before Tara could fully absorb the present tense of Jax’s supposed feelings for her, she was stunned by the knowledge that he, apparently, was aware of her success _and_ had told his son about it. “He knows about my…,” Tara almost said her life, but her work was her life, and standing in front of the physical embodiment of Jax’s own best and biggest accomplishment, she simply couldn’t admit the narrowness of her existence. So, instead, she asked, “he knows about my career?”  
  
“Dad has a Google alert set for your name on his computer.”  
  
At that, Tara couldn’t help but let out a short, surprised laugh. Suddenly, she had this image of Jax sitting on his couch with a laptop. She saw his strong, blunt fingers with those gaudy, horrible club rings scrolling through medical journal articles and newspaper clippings. In the fleeting vision, for some reason, he was wearing glasses, his son asleep beside him with a book held limply in his hands.   
  
Shaking the picture away, Tara looked down on the child before her - _really_ looked at him. She peeled away the physical traits and mannerisms that the son shared with the father to try and see the boy underneath. He looked to be about eight, maybe nine years old, healthy yet somewhat undersized. Tara found herself wondering when his next growth spurt would hit, how many inches he would add to his height, for how much longer he would retain that baby round softness to his face. But then she had a terrible thought, one that unfortunately given the situation - she a neonatal and pediatric surgeon specializing in cardiology and Jax, apparently, all too aware of her professional reputation - made too much sense, heartbreaking sense, thanks to the family medical history she was privy to.  
  
What if the boy wasn’t small for his age, awaiting a growth spurt, but, instead, weak and unwell? What if that glow of vitality that Tara saw when she looked at the child was more the shine of her own memories of his father than actual strength and health? What if Jax’s son was sick?  
  
It took Tara several tries to raise her question, her voice cracking, and even then the query she posed was vague and oblique. “Are you… are you okay?”  
  
“Huh?”  
  
Looking over her shoulders once more, Tara didn’t elaborate on her previous question. Instead, she posed a different one. “Where is Jax… I mean, where is your father anyway? You really shouldn't be wandering around the hospital like this, exposing yourself to who knows how many or what kind of germs. We should get you admitted and situated in a room, and then I’ll start my preliminary examination.”   
  
“I’m not sick, Tara.” At what must have been her confused expression - she went from worrying about the child’s health, to planning his treatment, to hearing that he was fine all in a matter of seconds, so it was all just a little discombobulating, the boy amended, “well, not anymore. I was really sick when I was born, but the surgeries worked. I just had my checkup with Dr. Namid - it’s always around my birthday, and I turned eight in September, and he said I was his star patient.”  
  
Before Tara could mentally sift through her decades old knowledge of St. Thomas’ employee roster in an attempt to fill in the missing pieces of the kid’s story, he was talking once more, further surprising and bewildering her. “And Dad’s back in Charming. I saved up my allowance and the money Grandma gives me for ice cream, and I bought a bus ticket all on my own.”  
  
Tara folded her arms over her chest - the chart she was still holding awkwardly tucked against her, and she narrowed her gaze at the precocious eight year old. “Why exactly are you here, then?” Not giving him a chance to respond, she added a second, perhaps more important, especially considering who and _what_ his family were, question. “And does anybody know that you’re here?”  
  
“I’m here because my Dad needs you. You’re the only woman he’s ever loved. He might’ve married Wendy, my Mom, but he never loved her.” Tara winced because, as much as the kid’s words were a balm for her heart, she knew that no child should be aware of such matters concerning his parents. “I want you to come back with me - to Charming - to be with me and my dad… as a family.”  
  
“Oh,” Tara breathed out, completely and utterly shocked. The child’s confession also provided her with the answer to whether or not anyone was aware of his actions. There was no way that anyone else in Jax’s life would ever condone let alone encourage such a matchmaking scheme, so Jax’s son was in Colorado, while no one in California, in his family, in the _outlaw motorcycle club_ his father belonged to was any the wiser. “I… I don’t know what to say.”  
  
“Do you still love my Dad?”  
  
That was the last thing Tara expected the child to ask, yet she realized, after the words left his mouth, she should have been prepared for them. “Even if I did… and I’m not saying I do, it’s not that simple.”  
  
“But it is!”  
  
Flustered, Tara lifted a hand to her forehead and started to rub against the throbbing she could feel taking root in her temples. “I haven’t seen Jax in nearly twenty years. I don’t… we don’t even know each other anymore.”  
  
“So, you haven’t kept track of him… like he did you,” the boy asked, sounding genuinely hurt and saddened by the realization.   
  
The fact that Tara didn’t know his name, didn’t know him, should have told the child that already, but, obviously, he had been holding on to some kind of hope that, like Jax, she had been unable to let go of the past. He wasn’t necessarily wrong, but, in trying to hold onto what she had shared with Jax, Tara had avoided any knowledge of him after she left Charming, after she left him, because she had been afraid that, whatever Jax’s life would become, it would tarnish her memories of him, that the boy she had loved so much would be eclipsed and overshadowed by, corrupted by, the man she tried to know from afar. Shocking herself with the admission, for he was only eight years old, Tara confessed, “I couldn’t. It would have hurt too much.”  
  
“Yeah,” the kid agreed, sighing. “You mean my Mom?” Tara just shrugged, unwilling to diminish Jax in the eyes of his son, though a marriage and a child were the least of her fears concerning her ex’s life that she had avoided confronting. “They’re divorced, you know. Dad and Wendy separated before I was even born. She still comes around sometimes… when she’s clean, but she’s not really my Mom. It’s just me and Dad. And Grandma.”  
  
Tara had to swallow a snort at that. Because _of course_ Gemma was front and center in the gap left by Jax’s ex-wife and his son’s absent mother. Instead of addressing… any of what the little boy had told her about his life, about Jax’s life, Tara instructed him to, “grab your stuff. I’ll be done with my shift soon, but, in the meantime, you can hang out in the on-call room. And we need to call your Dad. I’m sure he’s worried sick about you.”   
  
As the kid picked up his bookbag and slung it over his shoulder, Tara couldn’t help but roll her eyes at the understatement of the decade she had just offered him. Jax wouldn’t just be worried about his child; he’d have charters up and down the coast and across the country searching for his kid. His son. His heir. Tara would be lucky if she’d reach him _before_ he started an all-out gang war, believing the boy to have been kidnapped - or worse - by a rival club. Yet, despite knowing how dire the situation had to be back in Charming, she found herself metaphorically dragging her feet to put off the inevitable. Jax had to be told that his son was safe and with Tara in Denver, but she really didn’t want to be the person who gave him that news.   
  
“See,” the kid said deliberately, jolting Tara back into the present and out of her concerns regarding the imminent future. “You do still know my Dad.”  
  
“Realizing that he’s worried about you has nothing to do with your Dad specifically. I might not be a parent myself, but I’m an adult _and_ a doctor. I’m around parents and their children every day, so I know that any dad, not just Jax, would go out of their mind with fear if their eight year old son just… disappeared.”  
  
He came to stand beside her with a warning. “Okay, that makes sense, but I’m not giving up.”  
  
Tara shook her head, amused at his antics in spite of everything. “You wouldn’t be Jax Teller’s kid if you did.”  
  
“I’m Abel, by the way,” he told her as he shocked Tara further by sliding his little left hand into her right.   
  
Tara had to swallow the sudden lump of emotion in her throat before she could genuinely say, “it’s really nice to meet you, Abel.”  
  
As they made their way towards the on-call room, Jax’s son held her hand tightly the entire time, never letting go.

**Friday, December 23rd, 2016**

Despite the urgency in which Tara knew Jax needed to be informed of his son’s whereabouts, calling her ex wasn’t like getting in touch with just any old boyfriend. So, despite what she had told Abel in the hospital, several hours had since passed, and she had yet to actually place a call to Charming.    
  
First, Tara told Abel that she was waiting until after her shift, that she had already slacked off from work enough by meeting and getting him settled. Then, she argued that it was a conversation best had from the privacy of her home, but even after she parked her SUV in the garage and got Abel settled in the den with some breakfast and cartoons, Tara still didn’t ring Jax. She just… what was she supposed to say to him? What Abel had done was so preposterous, she feared that Jax wouldn’t believe her, that he would somehow hold her accountable for the eight year old’s actions… like she had somehow set the whole thing in motion herself despite not having been aware of Abel’s very existence until just that morning. Plus, by design, Jax wasn’t the easiest person to get in touch with, the club breeding paranoia and demanding privacy.    
  
As not just a member but now president of SAMCRO, Jax’s cell phone number changed with every new burner he activated. Abel didn’t bother memorizing his Dad’s number. They didn’t have a house phone, and there was no way in hell Tara was trying Gemma’s old landline. Even if it was still active, the last thing any of them needed… but especially Tara… was for Gemma to become involved in the mess Abel’s machinations had created. That meant the garage phone wasn’t an option either as Abel had informed her that Teller-Morrow was still Gemma’s queendom. That left Tara with only one option: the clubhouse, and that was by far an imperfect solution.   
  
Calling the clubhouse too early in the morning was not a practical idea. Missing child or not, the clubhouse was a cesspool. Maybe the guys wouldn’t be drinking and fucking in celebration of their debauched depravity, but they would be drowning out and screwing through their sorrows. Whenever Tara finally spoke to someone, she needed them lucid enough to recognize who she was, because she wasn’t leading off the conversation with the reveal of Abel’s whereabouts out of fear of what conclusions could and probably would be jumped to. Instead, she wanted to reconnect with Jax as Tara first and then admit that his missing son was with her; whenever Tara finally spoke with Jax, she could not be confronted by the confirmation of all of the hundreds of women he had no doubt slept with since they broke up.    
  
So, when Tara’s thumbs moved by memory across the keypad of her iphone, her cell read a few minutes after ten, and the call rang several times before someone in the clubhouse picked it up. “Yeah,” an unknown male voice greeted her. It was both impatient and disinterested… like it had better things to do than answer the phone.    
  
By habit, Tara almost started the conversation by introducing herself, her title usually more important than her actual identity and the prompting for any call she might make. Instead, after just a second of indecision, she simply said, “I need to speak with Jax.”   
  
“You and every other chick from here to Oakland,” the stranger mocked her. Before she could respond, he pressed, “listen, Lady, now isn’t the time for this, okay? Jax is a little too busy to….”   
  
“Tell him it’s Tara,” she cut the club member off mid-dismissal. “I don’t care what else is going on there right now. If you tell Jax that Tara is on the phone for him, he’ll want to talk to me.”   
  
“And do you have a last name, Tara, or were you such a memorable fuck that he’ll just….”   
  
This time, when the Son was interrupted, it wasn’t Tara who stopped his ugly words. Instead, she could hear a distant voice, a voice just as recognizable - if not more so - than his child’s. “What the fuck did you just say, Juice?” With every second that went by, Jax’s voice became louder and louder, telling Tara that he was moving ever closer to the clubhouse phone. “Give me that,” he demanded. “I’ll deal with you later,” Jax promised his brother, this new - at least to Tara - member apparently named Juice. And then he was there -  _ really _ there… or, at least, on the other end of the line, saying her name in that way that only Jax could. “Tara,” he breathed out.   
  
In those two syllables, she heard so many emotions. Joy and awe. Peace and gratitude. Fondness. Yet there was also uncertainty, worry, pain, and loss. Wanting to alleviate even some of his anxiety and the weight of a lost and missing child that he carried on his no-doubt already heavily burdened shoulders, Tara got straight to the point. “Abel’s with me, Jax. He’s fine - a little disappointed that his plan isn’t going to work... but safe.”   
  
“Oh my god,” Jax gasped. Tara could practically feel his relief wash over her, and she imagined him stumbling back slightly until he could lean against a wall and slide down into a seated position. She saw him run the hand that wasn’t holding the phone through his long, silky blonde locks, but the image disappeared when she realized that she was picturing him as she last saw him - nineteen and still so full of promise, brash and bold, cocky. But he wasn’t that Jax, her Jax, any longer. “Holy shit,” he swore, laughing as only those who literally just survived a life and death moment can. “He’s really okay?”   
  
“I refrained from giving him a full work-up, but, yes, as far as my eyes can see, he’s completely healthy. Right now, he’s eating his way through my pantry while discovering channels I didn’t even realize I had.”   
  
Jax chuckled again. It was a breathless, part unnerved and part amused sound. “Just eight years old, and the little man went all the way to Denver on his own. Jesus christ.” Then Jax exhaled a harsh breath, and Tara gave him a moment to center himself before she voiced the curiosity she felt in regards to his reaction.    
  
“Jax, why aren’t you more surprised by… any of this?”   
  
“Tara, I had no idea that Abel was going to do this, I swear. But, now that I know where he went, it makes sense. Since he first saw a picture of us together, he was curious, but he has asked a hell of a lot of questions about you, about our past, recently, and I guess… well, he is  _ my  _ son after all, isn’t he.”   
  
From anyone else, the admission would be a cryptic statement, but from Jax? He had practically confessed to feelings that she had believed to be, that should have been, gone for almost two decades. “Jax?”   
  
“Look,” he cleared his throat, swallowed any emotion he had allowed to seep into his tone. “I gotta go. Gemma’s pissed. As soon as she heard your name and realized where Abel was, all her worry turned to anger. If I don’t shut her down, she’s doing to bulldoze her way through the fucking Rocky Mountains to get to him.” Jax could try to play it off like Gemma’s ire was born from her fear for her grandson, but they both knew that any concern she might have felt for Abel’s wellbeing would be overshadowed by her rage towards Tara being reintroduced into their lives. “In the meantime, if it’s not too much to ask, could you keep Abel with you until I can get there?”   
  
“Jesus, Jax, of course! You don’t even have to ask.”   
  
“I know, it’s just… I don’t know if I’ll be able to get a flight because of the holidays, and it’s at least a fifteen hour ride. But you have a life, a career. For god’s sake, Tara, you’re a fucking worldclass surgeon. The last thing I’m sure you have time for is my bullshit.”   
  
“A beautiful, selfless little boy who just wants to make his father happy for Christmas is not bullshit, Jax. Don’t worry about me. For that, for Abel -  _ your son,  _ I can make the time.” With that, Tara had revealed more than she should have, so to distract both of them, she started yelling at Jax next. “And it’s more like an eighteen hour trip under perfect driving conditions, which, newsflash, it’s December in the mountains, so it’s far from perfect! Do not do anything stupid. Drive safely… preferably not on your motorcycle, and,  _ whenever  _ you get here, Abel and I will be waiting.”   
  
“Will  _ you  _ really be waiting for me, Tara?” Without giving her a chance to respond - not that she had any idea what to say or how to react, Jax ended the call with a rushed, “I’ll see you soon, Babe.”   
  
And then like the conversation had never happened at all, he was gone, and Tara was thrust back into the nearly twenty years she had lived without Jackson Teller… only now that solitary existence was brightened and banished by the presence of his son at her side. Abel, with cereal bowl in hand and mouth still chewing his last bite of Honey Nut Cheerios, came to stand next to her, the background noise of the TV quickly drowned out by the conversation he initiated. “Your house is really nice. And big. I can’t believe you have all these rooms, and it’s just you. But you don’t have any Christmas decorations?”   
  
“Well,” Tara justified, feeling judged and found lacking by the eight year old. “I spend most of my time at the hospital.”   
  
“Even my Dad puts a tree up!”   
  
“Yes, but he has you, and I have….” She was going to say  _ and I have no one _ , but that was too sad of a thought to say out loud, and it would just encourage Abel in his fantasy of reuniting her with his Dad. So, instead, she finished, “like you said yourself, I live alone.”   
  
Just like he did earlier that morning, Abel slid one of his hands into one of Tara’s. “You’re not alone now, because I’m here with you… at least until my Dad picks me up.”   
  
“You know, you’re right,” Tara agreed, recognizing in Abel a desire not just for a family with her as his Mom and Jax as his Dad but also a sense of normalcy. She could only imagine what he saw when he compared his own life to those of his classmates. He might only be eight, but Tara remembered the inadequacy she had felt at that age when she thought of her own family - a mother dead of cancer and a father whose addiction made him no more present in her life. If anything, kids seemed crueler and more socially aware today than they had been thirty years prior.    
  
Taking Abel’s bowl from the hand not held in hers, she deposited it onto the kitchen counter and tugged him with her towards the mud room. “While you’re here,” she told him, “we’ll do Christmas right. Let’s go buy a tree!” They would also need to stop and get Abel a proper winter coat, some snow boots, and all the other accessories necessary in Colorado during December. He wouldn’t be there but a day or two, but Tara had a feeling Abel would not be satisfied with a few decorations. He was going to want the whole, cliched Christmas experience, including snow if the weather cooperated.    
  
“Maybe we could get two trees,” Abel suggested, talking quickly in his excitement. He dressed to go out with a distraction Tara had only ever witnessed before in her patients… and in Jax. “One for the living room in front of those big windows and a smaller one for the den. Oh! And maybe I could get a little tree for my room, too? And we should decorate your front porch, put up a wreath and hang some lights outside. Do you like those holiday villages? I always see them in Christmas movies. Can we also maybe make cookies? I know Santa’s not real, but we could still bake cookies for us to eat. And stockings! We need to get stockings, too.”   
  
On and on Abel went, his list ever growing and never ending, and Tara listened with amusement, feeling a sense of contentment and joy foreign to her as she backed her car out of the garage, turned the SUV towards the city, and drove them in the direction of the nearest tree lot. She was tired just listening to all of Abel’s ideas, and she hadn’t slept since the day before, but she would make as many of his wishes for the holiday come true as she could, no matter her exhaustion or the cost, because, truth be told, his enthusiasm was contagious.    
  
Tara had a feeling that Abel’s Christmas plans also still included reuniting her with Jax. As impossible as she and Jax together was, giving Jax’s son a perfect day was not. The more she bonded with Abel, the more it would kill her when he left to return to Charming and she went back to being all alone, but, at least in that moment, the eventual pain seemed worth it in exchange for the immediate happiness. 

**Saturday, December 24th, 2016**

Tara thought maybe Jax would come to her that night, but he didn’t. It wasn’t that she believed one day together could erase twenty years of them being apart. Abel wasn’t going to reunite them as he had set out to do when he boarded that Greyhound bus, because, a google alert on Jax’s part or not, they did not know each other’s lives. But they certainly still knew each other’s bodies. That kind of intimacy, that kind of profound and palpable attraction, would never go away no matter the time or the distance between them. All it took was Tara hearing Jax’s voice; seeing his tried and true smirk; smelling that unique blend of smoke, soap, and leather that only Jax possessed; feeling the graze of his touch against the small of her back where  _ his _ crow still reigned over  _ her _ body, and she was sixteen again, ready and willing to give herself to Jackson Teller whenever and wherever he wanted. And, without asking, she knew that the feeling was mutual. Yet, she laid awake in her king size bed long into the night.   
  
Alone.   
  
With their first batch of cookies cooling on the racks, Abel was seated at the kitchen island while Tara made them a simple lunch of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches when Jax strode into her house without knocking, moving through  _ her  _ space like  _ he  _ owned it. And the worst part was that Tara hadn’t even cared. In fact, she had liked that Jax had felt so comfortable around her… until she realized that he was just faking it. Uncomfortable and awkward, unsure of what to say, he had put on the act of Jax Teller, SAMCRO president - the boy she had once loved nowhere to be found. After rifling his son’s hair, he had waltzed up to Tara, wrapped a hand around her ass, tugged her close, and then kissed her on the corner of her mouth, an underwhelming, “hey, Babe,” his first in-person words to her after nineteen years.    
  
Tara had winced, and Jax had noticed how she was hurt, but Abel, not knowing how his Dad could be so different, better, around Tara, ignored the fraught moment. He jumped off of his stool, ran to his Dad, and then proceeded to pull him up, down, around, and even outside of Tara’s house as he showed Jax everything they had purchased and set up the day before. Once the two Teller boys had returned to the kitchen, the three of them had polished off their meal, the tension thick, before turning once more to Abel’s Christmas itinerary.    
  
With every layer of the club and Charming that Jax shed - his kutte being tossed aside to avoid getting powdered sugar on it, his rings being taken off to roll more cookies, the two of them became more familiar and loose with one another, the uneasiness being replaced with affection and a rapport long dormant but never dead. After that, it didn’t take much for Tara and Abel to convince Jax to stay through Christmas - Abel obviously believing his plan to reunite his Dad with his ex-girlfriend working and Tara unwilling to let go of Abel so quickly.    
  
If they weren’t baking cookies, then they were watching holiday movies or taking Abel sled riding. Jax drew the line at ice skating, and Tara distracted them both from thoughts of snowboarding. Abel practically fell asleep while eating his Christmas Eve dinner, Jax carrying him up to the guest room Abel had claimed - with a little tree, per his request - as his own. Once it was just the two of them without Abel as a buffer, Tara thought maybe their nerves would return, but they hadn’t. Instead, Jax teased her for all of the last minute gifts she’d paid ridiculous amounts of money to have overnighted, and he grabbed them both a couple of ice cold beers from her fridge as they sat down at the table to wrap presents. While they wrapped, they talked, and it was…  _ so fucking normal _ . And wonderful!    
  
It was everything that Tara had ever wanted when she left Jax all those years ago. The pesky details, that, in this idyllic world she had created for them in Denver, Jax didn’t really exist or fit… at least not as he was now, president of the MC, and Abel wasn’t really her son, were as far away and distant to her in those hours as the fabled North Pole of the Santa myth Abel had already outgrown. Or, given the club  _ and  _ Gemma, been disillusioned against.   
  
When all of the presents were placed under the tree, Abel’s newly purchased stocking stuffed, and the lights turned off, Jax and Tara had made their way upstairs together, side by side. Tara wasn’t surprised when Jax made the pretense of joining Abel in the guest room. Going to bed with her would have meant too much - more than just taking her to bed if he crept into her room some time during the night. While the former implied permanence and a relationship, the latter would have been just sex. A one night stand. Two people who were attracted to one another, who shared fond memories, who perhaps even still loved each other but knew that they could never be more than that again coming together for a few hours.    
  
So as not to confuse them or Abel, Jax would have made sure he left her bed before his son woke up, sneaking back into the guest room while it was still dark outside. He would have allowed Abel to wake her up on his own, leaning in the doorway of Tara’s bedroom with a knowing, satisfied, and smug grin on his face - shirtless and way too amused by her embarrassment over his son finding her naked, just as Jax had left her, under the covers. When Tara would have sent Abel downstairs on his own to start handing out the gifts, Jax would have winked at her before following his kid, allowing her a moment to make herself presentable.    
  
All of that  _ should  _ have happened. But it didn’t. Because, instead of amazing sex with Jax keeping her up that Christmas Eve night and then well into Christmas morning, it was his avoidance of her and his refusal of what they both wanted that prevented Tara from getting any sleep. Less than a single day spent together again, and she wanted more from Jax than just a few orgasms, but he wouldn’t even give her that much. Tara wasn’t sure if it showed restraint on Jax’s part or self-preservation, and she only had another day or two to figure it out, because as unexpectedly as Jax had popped back up in her life, he and his son would soon be leaving it again. 

**Sunday, December 25th, 2016**

For the first time in Tara Knowles’ professional career, she took a vacation day.    
  
Tara  _ always  _ worked the holidays, especially Christmas so that her surgical colleagues with children of their own or families of any kind could be at home to celebrate. But that year, even if they were only borrowed and Tara would return to her lonely life when the proverbial clock struck midnight, she had a family for once - a significant other and a child. Maybe that significant other was her ex-boyfriend who she had not seen since they were both nineteen years old, and the child certainly wasn’t hers, but nineteen or thirty-eight, Tara’s feelings for Jax were still there, and she would love any son or daughter of Jackson Teller’s simply because they were his… even if she meant nothing to either of them.    
  
But she  _ did  _ mean something to Jax and Abel. Tara wasn’t sure what that was, and, frankly, she didn’t care. Something was a hell of a lot more than the nothing she had been living with for two decades. So, for once, she took a vacation day, and she left the hospital in somebody else’s hands. After all, it would still be there when Jax and Abel went home and Tara went back to just having work and her solitary existence once again.   
  
In the meantime, she was determined to make the most of the little time she had with them. That meant getting up early after a restless, sleepless night to make a special Christmas morning breakfast. It meant opening presents, and staying in their pajamas all day, and eating cookies for lunch. It meant playing with Abel as he jumped from one new toy to the next, and it meant giving herself the gift of riding on the back of Jax’s bike with her arms wrapped tightly around him once more. It meant Christmas dinner, and opening stockings, and tucking Abel in when he fell asleep on the couch in the den while watching one of his new movies.    
  
Making the most of what little time she had with Jax and Abel meant, if Jax wasn’t going to go to Tara, then she would go to him.   
  
She made no sound as she stood from her bed and crossed the room, her feet cushioned and silenced by the thick carpet. Without considering the consequences of her actions, Tara opened the door of her own bedroom and then walked into Jax’s. He was awake, his bare arms lifted above and propped up underneath his head. The lights were turned off, but the room was still bright, the moon shining in from the large, uncovered windows. It made Jax’s pale skin look almost silver.   
  
Without either of them saying anything, Tara moved to stand at the foot of the bed, Jax’s unblinking gaze watching her every move, her every breath. As she slowly untied her robe, letting it slither off her arms and land in a puddle at her feet, she met his stare with one of her own, challenging him to deny her, to deny himself. He didn’t. Instead, it was only once Tara rounded the bed so to kneel beside him and then swing one of her nude legs across Jax so that she was straddling him, his hands automatically finding her hips with a possessive, deliberate grip, that Jax broke the silence. “This won’t change anything. You might be a different person now, Tara, but I’m not. I’m still the same guy you left behind nineteen years ago, and I always will be.”   
  
Tara disagreed. When she looked at Jax, did she still see the boy she had once loved so completely, so dangerously, so obsessively? Of course. Yes, he was still a Son, and yes, he was still in Charming, but no, he wasn’t just his club or just his town. Jax was so much more than those things now. And she planned on telling him exactly that…  _ after _ . Jax was never more receptive to new ideas than after he’d spent a good, long while between her naked, parted, welcoming thighs. So, instead of telling him how wrong he was, how much he had changed, Tara swallowed her words, smiled down upon Jax beautifically, and simply said, “love me.”   
  
And that’s exactly what Jax did.    
  
Sliding one of his arms around so that he was cradling the small of her back while his other hand slipped down to grip her left thigh, Jax pushed up and then flipped them both in one fluid movement, settling himself in the cradle of her hips… exactly where he belonged. His body was larger than she remembered, more muscular, and Tara pulled her legs up higher and flattened them more against the mattress in order to accommodate Jax’s additional strength and bulk. The stretch pulled slightly, burned, and Tara relished in the discomfort, for it made her feel more alive than she had in years.    
  
It had been so long since they’d been together that Tara assumed that Jax would waste no time in entering her, her body already wet and willing, awaiting him. But he didn’t. Instead, Jax kissed her. He joined their mouths, and he twined their tongues, and, when Tara started to see phosphenes floating in the moonlit room from need of air, Jax buried his face - his lips, his tongue, his teeth - in her neck, in her cleavage, underneath her breasts, below her ribs, around her belly button, across her hip bones, and then on her pussy, leaving her even more breathless and his mark behind with every kiss, every nip, every suck, and every lave against her skin.    
  
Even after Jax brought her to completion with his mouth against her clit, he still wouldn’t thrust his cock home inside of her pulsing, weeping walls. Instead, he surged forward to realign their bodies, merely rubbing his dick along her sensitive, puffy with need and want center while, at the same time, retracing the steps of his kisses, stopping and stalling out once he came upon her breasts once more. There, Jax stayed - biting, sipping, pinching, rolling... like he was trying to make her orgasm again simply from nipple play alone. Every once in a while, she would feel the head of his cock slip just inside of her nether lips, but Jax would pull back out, denying them both.    
  
Eventually, Tara found herself chanting, “please, please, please, please,” knowing that she was begging, recognizing how desperate and needy she sounded but simply not caring. All she wanted was Jax’s cock inside of her, pounding into her, dragging out only to push back in harder, and faster, and just  _ more  _ the next time. Or he could stay there, bury himself as deeply as he could and then never leave. She craved the feeling of the head of his dick jammed up against her cervix.    
  
Actually, she just craved him.   
  
When Jax finally entered her, he took his time. Tara orgasmed again as soon as he penetrated her, but then Jax started to build up her pleasure once more with long, leisurely, indulgent thrusts, never completely pulling out of her but also never going as far as they both knew he could. While he rocked his cock inside of her, Jax dragged himself against Tara’s clitorus. With one hand, he palmed, and kneaded, and explored her ass; with the other, he caressed her crow tattoo. Their mouths constantly joined, Tara could only cry her desire into Jax’s roars and grunts of satisfaction, allowing him to swallow her sobs of passion and pleasure.    
  
In her desperation to cum, Tara’s own hands constantly sought further stimulation. Sometimes, she teased her own breasts, mimicking Jax’s earlier attentions to them. Other times, she would reach down, grip Jax by the ass, and try to force him and his cock to go further, faster, harder, deeper inside of her. She’d pull his hair; and she’d hold her own legs up higher and more open; and she’d slip her nimble fingers between their sweaty, gyrating bodies to rub at her own clit or fondle - squeezing and petting - Jax’s heavy, velvety sack; and she’d score her nails down the inked skin of his back. With every surge of Jax’s hips and every clench of her inner walls, Tara’s need for release just grew, and grew, and grew until, finally, when she shattered, she climaxed with her entire body, passing out.    
  
When she woke minutes... or maybe it was hours later, she couldn’t be sure, Jax was gone.

**Monday, December 26th, 2016**

_ “I get it now - why you left. Why you had to leave.” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Tara glanced up from the children’s microscope she was wrapping, caught off guard by Jax’s confession and unsure of how to react. But he wasn’t even looking at her, his eyes locked on a distant, shadowy point. She knew that he wasn’t actually seeing anything… at least, not of the here and now. Despite waiting nearly two decades for Jax to finally understand where she was coming from when she had wanted more than just to be his Old Lady, Tara didn’t like seeing him so conflicted, so lost.  _ _   
_ _   
_ _ She started to reach out, wanting her touch to pull him back from whatever hell he was mentally trapped in, but then she hesitated, because what if her touch did the opposite; what if, instead of returning him to her, Tara froze him forever with his demons? It was an absurdly whimsical idea - she knew that, but she couldn’t shake it either. So, instead of taking one of Jax’s hands in her own or lifting a palm to cup the side of his face, she sat back in her chair and simply said, “Jax?” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “For me, it was always us against them, you know? My family - mom, you, the club - versus the rest of the world, and fuck them, right? But you - who had every reason after all the shit you had to put up with - never saw it like that. Maybe it was your mom being sick that showed you that life should be bigger than what I had to offer you, that the noise mattered. It wasn’t like when my old man died. Even when he was still hanging on, we knew he was already as good as dead. But with your mom, she fought for months, and people - strangers - fought for her, too.” Finally, Jax released his hold on the past… or it released him, and he turned to stare deeply into Tara’s eyes.  _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Shaking his head ruefully, Jax admitted, “I didn’t get it until Abel was born ten weeks premature with a hole in his belly and a bum heart. Even then, it didn’t sink in right away.” Chuckling humorlessly in self-deprecation, Jax stated, “when it comes to what really matters, I’m a slow fucking learner, Tara. It took me ten years and a disaster of a marriage to realize that I couldn’t fuck you out of my heart or my head, and it’s taken me nearly that long to figure out that this life that I’ve chosen for myself… and now for my son… has no meaning. I’m going nowhere. I’m accomplishing nothing. And I never will - not like you.” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ This time, when Jax smiled, it was so genuine, so heartfelt, so tender that it brought tears to Tara’s eyes. It made her chest ache with pride to hear Jax acknowledge her accomplishments, and it made her throat clench with fear and anxiety to hear him so disillusioned about his own world - the club, and Charming, and the life he led. “Jesus, Tara, you’re amazing. I’m in awe of you, Babe. With that gorgeous, big fucking brain of yours and your hands….” Smirking, Jax sent her a wink full of mischief and memories. “You know I’ve always been a fan of your talented fingers.” Tara couldn’t help herself; she laughed. Nearly forty years old - and a father, and the man could still make any and everything about sex. “You  _ save  _ lives - lives like Abel’s, and Thomas’, and all of the other kids out there who get dealt a shit hand.” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Jax was still watching her with reverence in his gaze when Tara realized that he was ready to listen… maybe not completely  _ hear _ what she had to say but listen. “Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do, and it is rewarding, Jax, but it took me a long time to learn some lessons, too.” Pausing long enough to give her next words the gravitas they deserved, Tara only continued to talk when the last vestiges of Jax’s admiration were banished in favor of his curiosity. “A career does not a life make. Yes, I operate on the sickest and neediest of patients: premature babies and ill children, and I’m very successful at it, but when those children get better….” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “Because of you,” Jax interrupted, unwilling, apparently, to let his praise of her professional skills or his pride in her work drop. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Tara ignored him. “... they go home, and I’m alone once again - a holiday card recipient and an annual reminder of the worst thing that ever happened to them. But you have a son, Jax; you’re a father - and a good one… from what I’ve been able to tell. You and Abel are a family. That’s not nothing, Jax; that’s  _ everything _.” _ _   
_ _   
_ Jax was gone, but he had left Abel behind. With her.    
  
As Tara kneeled on the floor in front of the still slumbering and completely oblivious eight year old - her hand poised above but not quite touching his long, tousled from sleep hair, she thought back to the inadequate note Jax had left in his place on the pillow beside her. For the briefest of moments, Tara had hoped that it would simply tell her that he went out to get them all breakfast, but she knew before she even read the first word that he was saying goodbye. What she hadn’t anticipated was that he wasn’t just leaving her; he was leaving his son, too.    
  
_ Be for each other what I should have been for both of you. _ _   
_ _   
_ Jax then went on to say that, if Tara objected, if she didn’t want Abel - his son with another woman, he would understand, that he would take him back and there would be no hard feelings. She had almost burned his letter at that point. Crumbling it up, and tearing it into tiny pieces, and tossing it away simply weren’t big enough actions to express her frustrations with Jax and his words. But Tara had refrained, needing the note as much as it infuriated her. It wasn’t that she didn’t want Abel. God, she wanted to be his mother so badly that the idea of actually getting what she wanted scared her practically into inaction. That’s why she sat there beside Abel, unable to wake or even touch him. Because… what if she wasn’t who he wanted?   
  
Yes, he came to Colorado in the hopes of reuniting her with his Dad, but Jax was gone now, and it was just the two of them. For now. Tara had every intention of fighting for Jax, because she didn’t just want his son; she wanted him as well. She was livid with him for giving up his child, for being unwilling to fight for them, for giving up on himself. That hurt and ire, however, did absolutely nothing to diminish the love she felt for him, too. But Tara decided that she couldn’t tell Abel any of this. She wouldn’t show him Jax’s note, and she wouldn’t crush him with the weight of his father’s abandonment. If Tara couldn’t fix this for him, couldn’t bring Jax back to both of them, then and only then would Abel learn the truth, and she would give him the option to decide what he wanted: to stay with her - a normal, boring, doctor’s son - or go back to his Dad, and the club, and Charming. In the meantime, Tara would simply allow Abel to believe that Jax was wrapping up their lives back in California before he would rejoin them in Denver where they would start to make a new life together for all three of them.    
  
With her decisions made and a plan starting to take shape in her mind, Tara was finally capable of action. Her hand dropped, and her long and lean surgeon’s fingers started to card their way through Abel’s long, blonde locks. At first, his groggy, blue eyes opened to just murky slits - one of his own hands lifting to rub them further awake, while he yawned so wide that they both heard his jaw crack. Tara smiled warmly, lovingly down upon him, and Abel returned the grin as he burrowed a little further into the soft cushions of the sofa and the blankets warmed from his body heat. “Let’s get you a haircut today.”

**Saturday, December 31st, 2016**

Tara wasn’t sure what would have been received worse - the fact that Jax gave up his son or that he gave him to her, but what she did know was that it was a risk for her to bring Abel back to Charming… even if only temporarily. “I need you to stay in the car for me, okay? I’ll only be inside for a few minutes - just long enough to find out where your Dad is.”  
  
While Abel appeared puzzled by her insistence, he also didn’t question it. Instead, he was content to read his book. Climbing out of the rental car and stepping onto the lot of Teller-Morrow for the first time in nearly twenty years, Tara was struck by the fact that it didn’t matter how long she was gone or how far she went, there were things a person could never forget. Like… there wasn’t just a hierarchy between the members of SAMCRO; that pecking order also extended to their bikes. So, with just a glance, Tara could tell that Jax wasn’t at the clubhouse - his parking spot, the best one now that he was president, left open for his return and the unique design of his Dyna sacrosanct, duplication verboten. The ride she shared with him in Denver might have been brief - neither of them wanting to leave Abel alone for too long, but anyone who had spent even a small amount of time around the club instinctively recognized the symbolic importance of three things: bike, ink, and kutte.  
  
Although Tara walked with her shoulders back and her chin up, she also didn’t make a scene upon entering the clubhouse. Allowing the door to close quietly behind her, she took the few seconds her presence went unobserved to gauge the mood, to scan the crowd for any and all familiar faces. She recognized a few - Bobby and Chibs too distinct to forget, and Tara was pretty sure that the man standing beside Gemma was named Tig. But her scrutiny stopped there, because, just as she looked upon Gemma for the first time in nearly twenty years, Gemma saw her.  
  
And then all hell broke loose.  
  
“Oh, hell no!,” Jax’s mother cursed, immediately charging across the room to get in Tara’s face. “Bitch, you do not want to test me. Get out. Leave. Crawl back to whatever high-and-mighty hole you crawled out of, because my son does not need this shit from you right now.” Gemma was practically pressed up against her. Taller than Tara with her sky-high heels, she tried to crowd her back, intimidate her, but Tara stood her ground. “You left him. Ran away like the coward you are. And then, when he needed you the most, you failed him yet again. That doesn’t mean you get to slink back into our lives with your tail tucked between your ready to spread legs because you, what? - feel guilty?”  
  
“Gemma, I really don’t know what you’re talking about, and I’m not _back_ for anything concerning _you_. I’m just here to see Jax.” She hadn’t planned on making her stand and fighting for him yet… at least, not like this, not in Charming, not with his mother hanging over both of them like the ominus, black cloud she was. But then she received the paperwork from his lawyer - paperwork terminating Jax’s parental rights to Abel and starting the process for Tara to legally adopt him, and she just… reacted. Now, a plane ride from Denver to San Francisco and then a rental car drive from San Francisco to Charming later, Tara found herself exactly where she didn’t want to be, the circumstances perhaps even less conducive to achieving the results she sought than even she could have predicted. “We have some unfinished business.”  
  
“No, you really don’t,” Gemma countered, arguing with her. “My son did not waste even a single second thinking about you over these last twenty years, and the only reason he saw you again was because of my grandson.”  
  
“Because Abel ran away… _from you..._ and came _to_ _me_ , because Jax told him all about me, about us,” Tara couldn’t help but remind Gemma, couldn’t stop herself from twisting in that knife. Even if she had wanted to spare the older woman even an ounce of pain and guilt… which she didn’t, Gemma’s caustic _greeting_ was all the incentive Tara needed to fight fire with fire, hurt for hurt.   
  
“And all you had to do was somehow manage to keep an eight year old with you long enough for Jax to pick him up, but you couldn’t even do that.” Tara had no idea what Gemma was talking about, but she found the accusation to be rich - ripe with hypocrisy. “You just had to go and dig up your old trauma with my son all over again... and for what? Absolutely goddamn nothing! Because you fucked up, lost Abel, and now you’re here, actually thinking I’d let you further mess with his head? That’s some entitled bullshit… even for you, Doc.”  
  
Shaking her head in dismayed astonishment, Tara said, “I always knew you were a crazy bitch, Gemma, but this is just certifiable.” Glancing around the room for some support, some further acknowledgement that Jax’s mother had officially lost her mind, Tara was instead met with a complete lack of sympathy - the looks ranging from blank stares to open hostility. Once more focusing upon the older woman standing in front of her, she boldly denied, “I didn’t _lose_ Abel.”  
  
“What, are you going to tell me that he was never your responsibility in the first place,” Gemma raged, the volume of her accusations rising as her thinly leashed control snapped. “That you can’t be held accountable for a child’s actions and that Jax never should have expected you to care enough about his son, about him, to make sure that Abel didn’t run off again before Jax could get there and pick him up?!”  
  
Eyes wide, her own anger overshadowed by the weight of her realization, Tara gasped, “you think…?” Gemma believed that, before Jax could make it to Colorado, Abel gave Tara the slip and disappeared again, and Gemma - hell, probably the whole club - believed that, because that’s what Jax had told them had happened. “Of course,” she whispered… more to herself than to anyone else in the room. “You never would have let him go, and you never would have let him go to me.”  
  
Unhearing… or unwilling to hear what Tara had said, Gemma spat, “you probably did it on purpose just to spite me. After all, you were always a jealous and selfish whore.”  
  
“And you were always a toxic bitch.” They were hurtful words… or, well, they would have been to anyone else besides Gemma Teller-Morrow, but Tara muttered them without heat. Oh, she knew that she would be well and truly irritated by Jax’s mother once she had the time to completely come to terms with everything said between them, but that would need to wait until after she processed exactly what Gemma’s revelations meant for Jax and his state of mind.   
  
It was one thing for Jax to give up his son, his hope, and, once and for all, her - the three things that she suspected made up the entirety of his humanity, but now she realized, because he was lying to both his mother and his club, that he had also given up his past, his present, and any purpose he had left without Abel. For his entire adult life, Jax had always been both the man and the outlaw. First, it was Tara, and then it was his son who allowed him to be more than just his club persona. But now Jax believed both she and Abel were gone from him for good. If she wasn’t already too late, all that would soon remain would be the reaper.  
  
A sharp, stinging crack to the face - Gemma’s hand landing solidly upon Tara’s left cheek and jaw - snapped her out of her terrifying thoughts and back into the moment just in time to hear a collective gasp rock through the clubhouse. Before Tara could naively assume the reaction to be pity, and before she could even feel the pain of Gemma’s physical assault, Abel threw his little body in front of her like a shield. “Grandma, no!,” he screamed.   
  
Gemma stumbled backwards, the same hand she had used to slap Tara going to clutch at her chest. But the gesture was one of shock, not regret… just as that of the bikers had been surprise and not sympathy. Out of the corner of her eye, Tara saw Chibs make a phone call. She couldn’t hear what was said, but the Scotsman’s tone of voice was terse and livid, a tightly reigned in rasp. Without needing to ask, Tara knew that Jax had just been summoned and that neither she nor Abel would be going anywhere until Jax ordered his club _and_ his mother to stand down. So, she didn’t even fight it. Rather, she straightened her back once more, and she laid both of her hands gently yet possessively onto Abel’s thin and bony, eight year old shoulders.   
  
If ever there was a look of a woman, of a mother, prepared to go into battle for her child and her family, it was Tara in that moment.   
  
With a trembling voice, Gemma accused, “you… you kidnapped my grandson?!”  
  
The Son Tara believed to be Tig came to stand beside Jax’s mother. He took hold of her upper arm and tried to tug her back - further away from Tara and Abel, but Gemma would not be budged. “Gem, I don’t think that’s what’s going on here.”  
  
No one else spoke up, but it was obvious that, while Gemma was still holding onto her faith that her son would never lie to her, would never choose anyone, least of all Tara, over her, the rest of SAMCRO had figured out the truth. Tara had not taken Abel from Jax; he had given his son to her.   
  
“You weren’t satisfied with nearly destroying Jax twenty years ago; you had to go and take away the one thing that mattered the most to him! I’ll kill you for this,” Gemma vowed. Up until that point, she had been eerily calm, reserved. But then, with an otherworldly shriek, Gemma tried to launch herself in Tara’s direction. “I’ll bash your fucking skull in, you hateful, goddamn gash!” Fingers curled like talons, the only thing that prevented Gemma from raking her nails down Tara’s face was the grip Tig had on her arm. It was as though Gemma was blind to the fact that her grandson was still standing between them, petrified and completely still. Within a beat or two, a second pair of hands wrapped around Gemma’s free arm, and, between the two men, they were finally able to drag her away.  
  
Knowing that she was at least physically safe - for now - and recognizing the fact that, if ever she was going to secure Jax’s freedom from his poisonous town and his even more poisonous club and mother, she needed to start making her case immediately, Tara, smooth and collected, started to talk. “Please don’t tell me that you can’t see why Abel would run away from… _this_.” To emphasize her point, Tara briefly lifted her right hand from Abel’s shoulder and gestured around the clubhouse. “Why he would seek happiness for his father and a sense of normalcy for himself. With me. Why he believed that the only way he could have a whole and healthy family was if he sought it outside of this… cesspool.”  
  
No one responded - not even Gemma. Tara’s words were met with neither acknowledgement nor scorn. So, she pressed on, undaunted if not encouraged. “And is it no wonder that Jax held onto a love from twenty years ago - a love that was based on genuine affection, and friendship, and attraction and was completely separate from the albatross around his neck that is this club - so tightly that he would tell his son about it, about me? SAMCRO is killing Jax. I’m not talking physically, though give it enough time….”   
  
Swallowing thickly at the very thought, Tara continued, “I’m talking mentally and emotionally. If Jax continues down his current path - this outlaw biker life that you,” she indicated Gemma, “foolishly told him was his legacy, was his destiny, everything that makes him Jax - your son and friend, your brother,” she once more directly addressed the club, “the man I love, and Abel’s father - will fade away or be completely corrupted until the only thing that will remain will be a shell, a ghost of the man who once was - empty, lost, completely alone, nothing more than a reflection of the reaper, of the specter of death, that he wears on his back.”  
  
“Those are some fancy words, sweetheart,” Bobby told her… not unkindly but also not with any kind of recognition or agreement. “But it’s been nearly two decades. You don’t love Jax, and he doesn’t still love you, because you don’t know each other anymore.”  
  
His argument was so like that which she had first given Abel when he had so unexpectedly appeared in her life, ready to reunite her with his Dad. But it was easy for Tara to ignore the similarities, because, after spending those two days with Jax the week prior, she knew firsthand just how wrong she had been and Bobby was now. “I know Jackson Teller better than I know myself. Sometimes, I think I’m the only person who has ever truly known who Jax is.” She paused just long enough for her words to sink in with his mother and his biker brothers. “And I know that I’m the only person in this room, besides Abel, who has ever really loved Jax - not the son, or the Son, but the man, because, if anyone of you actually loved him, you never would have allowed - let alone encouraged - him to live this life.”  
  
“Don’t pretend like you know anything about us or this life,” Gemma fired back. Although she was still being restrained by Tig and the younger member with skull tattoos, Gemma had, apparently, regained enough of her composure to verbally spar once more with Tara. “You turned your nose up on everything Jax offered you all those years ago, and, if anything, you’re even more of a judgemental hussy now than you were then. You don’t get to condemn something you’ll never understand!”  
  
“You’re right,” Tara shocked Gemma silent by momentarily concurring with her. “I don’t understand how a mother could _ever_ put her child at risk for selfish reasons. Just because your parents were too strict, too religious, and you wanted to rebel, that does not mean you get to condemn your son to a life of uncertainty, risk, ridicule, instability, crime, and almost certain death. What kind of parent _does that_?”  
  
Gemma snorted, rolling her eyes in derision. “You spend one goddamn week with my grandson, and all of a sudden you fancy yourself a _mom_?”  
  
“Of course not. But the guardianship papers Jax sent me this week say otherwise.”  
  
Before the words had even finished rolling off of her tongue, Tara knew that it was the wrong thing to say, but she couldn’t help herself. It was partly her natural reaction to Gemma. Jax’s mother had always had a way to test Tara, to push her past her normal tendency towards restraint. It was also partly her pride which wouldn’t allow her to stand back and let Gemma belittle her new role in Abel’s life. Tara was proud of the trust Jax had put in her, and she was proud of her new relationship with his son. But she also didn’t know what she would have done next after revealing just how far Jax was willing to go to keep his son away from Charming, SAMCRO, and even Gemma herself, because the clubhouse was a powder keg ready to erupt, and she had just struck the match. So, luckily, before anyone else could say or do anything, Jax was there, standing next to her - his positioning saying more about whose side he was taking in the fight than any formal declaration ever possibly could.   
  
“Abel, go outside.” Jax’s voice was soft and warm with endearment, and it lacked any steel of conviction that might have actually encouraged his son to follow his instruction. So, Abel stayed, the three of them - Abel standing sentry in front of Tara, Tara’s hands still holding Abel by the shoulders, and Jax in their corner with one hand on the small of Tara’s back and the other on top of his son’s now closely cropped hair - a single unit, a family, up against everyone else in that room.  
  
It was Chibs who stepped forward to confront them. Only then did Tara notice the vice president patch on his worn kutte. “Is any of what she said true, Jackie Boy?”  
  
Tara was startled for a moment, defensive on Jax’s behalf, because… how could he _possibly_ answer that question when he had just arrived, when he had missed the whole, ugly, sordid encounter? But then she quickly realized that he didn’t need to have heard any of the words to know what had been said. The tableau he had walked in on, the visible tension and animosity present within the clubhouse, the history they all shared, and the facts of the situation plainly spoke to the heart of the matter he was being asked to clarify. And, really, if any of SAMCRO was being honest with themselves in that moment, they already knew the answer to Chibs’ query. They could see it for themselves in Abel’s and in Jax’s actions. Yet, they still needed Jax’s verbal confirmation to blow up every rule, and every tenant, and every oath of their purportedly anarchist world.  
  
And Jax gave them exactly that. “Yeah,” he stated with a hitch in his voice. Swallowing thickly, Jax regained some of his composure. There was more force behind his tone when he continued, “it’s all true.”  
  
“Ay, that’s what I thought,” Chibs responded coolly. It wasn’t the fireworks Tara expected, but, somehow, the nonreaction was even scarier. She felt a shiver race up her back. Before Tara could analyze the trepidation she felt or behave accordingly, she watched on in horror as Chibs nodded his head in sadness, rubbed his jaw in tired acceptance, and then reached for his gun, aiming and firing the weapon in the space of a mere blink of an eye or a gasp of horror filled recognition.   
  
Jax fell to the floor, and Tara screamed, forgetting in that moment that she was both a surgeon and also now Abel’s mother. It was the eight year old’s near constant cries of, “Dad, Dad, Daddy,” that brought her back to her senses and her collected, professional detachment.   
  
Unseeing of the blood beneath her except to analyze what the loss would mean for Jax’s medical condition, Tara dropped down beside him, stripping off the light, casual coat she wore and balling it up to apply against his wound and soak up as much blood as she could. In the seconds it took her to do this, she quickly observed Jax’s wound, the bullet a near direct hit to his left knee. The bone was shattered, and she could only estimate the amount of damage he had suffered to the joint and the muscles, ligaments, and tendons surrounding it.   
  
Tara was reaching for her bag and the cell phone inside of it when Chibs stiffly came to kneel on Jax’s opposite side. “You want out. You want your son out. Fine. Now, you’re out.” As he talked, the Scotsman opened a pocket knife and used it to slice off the patches from Jax’s kutte. “I don’t care what kind of fucking miracles the good doctor can perform. She won’t be able to fix your leg, and you won’t be able to ride again.” As he stood back up… and not without difficulty - the hard life of an outlaw biker obviously taking its toll on his body, Chibs offered one last, parting remark. “Remember what we did to Kyle Hobart. You’re no better than him now, Jackie Boy. You have one year.”  
  
And then he spat on Jax’s prone body before walking away.  
  
Slowly, one by one, the other members of SAMCRO followed him out of the clubhouse. Even Gemma, after pausing - momentarily torn, left Jax behind without apology, without an offer to help, without even a goodbye, obviously choosing the Sons over her son. If it wasn’t for the emergency at hand, Tara would have been staggered over by the betrayal of a mother and the conflicted loyalty of a brother - Chibs’ actions obviously not just a punishment for Jax’s treachery and lies, his disrespect, but also a blessing for the future Jax so desperately wanted but didn’t know how to have, a blessing born of sympathy and love. But she didn’t have the luxury to think about… _anything_ … besides saving Jax’s life and preserving as much of his mobility as she possibly could while, at the same time, keeping Abel grounded and calm.  
  
“I need you to find me a chair with wheels,” she told the little boy. When he didn’t move, Tara had to let go of her coat she held to Jax’s bleeding knee, twist around, and take hold of Abel’s trembling hands. In doing so, she smeared the father’s blood against the pale, innocent flesh of the son, but it couldn’t be helped, and, if the two of them were going to get Jax out of the clubhouse and to the hospital without additional assistance, then there would be more blood where those small smears came from. Looking into the eight year old’s wide and frightened blue eyes, Tara spoke slowly and reassuringly. “You can do this, Abel. I need you to focus and be strong, to do as I tell you, and I will fix this, okay? I’ll make sure that your Dad is alright. I promise.”  
  
“Okay,” Abel agreed. His voice might have been shaky, but, when he took off deeper into the clubhouse, his quick steps were sure and determined.  
  
When she turned back around to Jax, Tara found that he had passed out. Despite what that meant in regards to his loss of blood, she actually felt it was a blessing, because the pain he was feeling had to be excruciating, and at least unconscious he wouldn’t be aware of that discomfort… or the fear it inspired. There was no way that SAMCRO was going to allow an ambulance onto the lot or EMTs into the clubhouse, so it was going to be up to Tara and Abel to get Jax into the car and to the hospital. To that end, she needed something to affix the makeshift gauze, the fabric of her coat, to Jax’s knee and keep it in place while she transported him out to the rental car and drove them to the emergency room.   
  
Tara could not once remember Jax having ever worn a belt before, and she didn’t have one on that day either. Darting her surgeon’s gaze from one thing to the next and cataloguing her surroundings, Tara quickly analyzed and dismissed everything she saw until her eyes once more fell upon her purse. Without second guessing herself, Tara reached for the knife Jax still wore strapped to his hip, using it to slice the handle off of her bag. Briefly, she considered using it as a tourniquet rather than simply to secure her jacket to his wound. The pressure she had applied earlier had not stopped Jax’s bleeding, but she also knew of the damaging long term effects a tourniquet could have upon a compromised limb. Because of Chibs’ shot, Jax had already lost his ability to ride. The last thing Tara was willing to do was make him lose his leg on top of that.  
  
So, she ruled out the idea of a tourniquet, and she, instead, used the leather to wrap her already blood sodden coat to Jax’s kneecap… or what was left of it. Once Abel returned with the chair she had requested, the two of them worked together to get Jax onto it. Tara knew that, even with Abel’s help, she’d never be able to lift and carry Jax out to the car, but, with the chair’s wheels, they could drag his unconscious form outside, across the lot, and then hopefully slide... but more likely push... him into the backseat of the rental. And that’s exactly what they did - arms shaking from fright and exertion but eyes completely clear and dry, because Tara wouldn’t allow herself to cry. Not yet. Not until she knew that all three of them would make it out of Charming alive, and in one piece, and safe.  
  
As she drove them towards St. Thomas - Jax still passed out behind her and Abel quietly sobbing beside her, Tara was struck by the fact that, as imperfect as the situation was… and it was pretty fucking imperfect - bloody, and terrifying, and so permanent that it left her short of breath and trembling… Jax and Abel were finally free.   
  
And they were _hers_.

**Monday, December 25th, 2017**

Abel was already downstairs, no doubt putting a sizable dent in the Christmas cookies while he waited for the rest of his family to descend the stairs and settle in the living room to disperse and open gifts, but it would have taken a case of appendicitis in her son to move Tara from her spot in the open doorway of the nursery. Eliza Grace was already three months old, and Tara had spent hours… if not days… watching Jax with their daughter, but it was a sight she would never tire of or take for granted.    
  
With bare legs and feet, Tara stood there in her pajamas - shorts and an old flannel of Jax’s which made breast feeding easier - arms crossed over her tender chest and shoulder leaning against the jamb. Her hair was still extra thick from her pregnancy, down loose and disheveled from sleep. Fleetingly, she considered running back to their room to make herself more presentable for both the candids and the posed shots Jax would insist upon later, but Christmas pictures without bedhead didn’t matter to her nearly as much as hearing Jax thank their daughter for already sleeping through the night so Daddy could give Mommy a few early presents or watching him rain kisses down upon her chubby cheeks and baby fine, soft, dark hair.    
  
Jax was in love with their little girl, and Tara was completely and utterly in love with him.   
  
With Eliza in the crook of one arm and his opposite hand holding onto the cane he sometimes still needed to walk, especially on those cold, damp Colorado winter mornings, Jax turned around and made his way towards Tara, a smirk hitching up the corners of his mouth. It was obvious from his self-satisfied expression that he had been aware of her presence there, watching him, the entire time. But Tara didn’t mind. In all honesty, she appreciated - even enjoyed - his smugness, always had. After all of the changes to their lives over the last year and all of Jax’s struggles with his physical recovery and coming to terms with his identity - who was Jax Teller without Charming and SAMCRO, without his mother pulling his strings? - the confidence, quite frankly, was nice to see.    
  
It still caught Tara by surprise sometimes - this life they had somehow managed to build for themselves despite everything, not the least of which was time and circumstances, stacked against them. Even before she learned that she was pregnant, they agreed to sell her townhouse and move somewhere further outside of Denver. It made Tara’s commute into work longer, but the Longmont schools were better, and the smaller town provided both Jax and Abel with a sense of familiarity. Plus, Jax surprised no one more than himself when he became interested in all of the craft breweries Longmont was known for, eventually buying into one as a partner once he sold his house in Charming. Jax might not be outlaw MC royalty anymore, and he still couldn’t ride  _ yet _ ... although he was determined to get Tara on the back of  _ his  _ Harley again someday, but he would always be a biker, and the brewery leaned into that image, that aesthetic, when creating its product, advertising it, and then in designing its shopfront.    
  
Despite still requiring the use of a cane, it was Jax who insisted that they buy their big, brick, turn of the century house. He was determined to fill all of the bedrooms with babies… even though they were both racing towards forty, and Tara liked the rambling, shaded yard for the kids. With its high ceilings and spacious rooms, she was pretty sure that what truly appealed to Jax was the sense of openness even when they were inside. After a life spent in the freedom of the open road, Tara had no doubt that there were still moments when Jax had to struggle with how conventional and restricted, how safe, their lives were now… frequent trips on his part to Longmont’s skydiving center notwithstanding.    
  
Jax moved to take the stairs first, Tara trailing after him. Even though just minutes before she had been staring at him bent over Eliza’s crib, sometimes seeing his bare back - clean of all ink, free of the reaper, and unburdened by the colors of the club - still made her gasp. Jax still wore his other tattoos proudly - the memorial to his father, Abel emblazoned across his heart, and he had added two new designs - one for her and one for their daughter - over the last few months. It didn’t matter that his hair was short now, his SAMCRO rings gone and replaced by a simple, white gold wedding band, or that he no longer strapped on a knife and a gun every morning when he dressed for his day; it was the sight of the pure and pristine, the unblemished and the untarnished skin of his back that, for Tara, really drove home the fact that he was well and truly, finally free.    
  
At the sound of her sharp inhalation, Jax paused, turned around, and looked up at her. He stood just one step below her, but the difference made Tara a few inches taller than him. Without needing to ask what was wrong - he just…  _ knew _ , Jax beckoned Tara to lean down so he could kiss her. It was a soft, leisurely embrace - more a brushing of their lips than an actual kiss, but Tara felt the touch in every nerve ending of her body. Afterwards, her lashes fluttered open slowly only to meet Jax’s smiling, impossibly blue and impossibly happy gaze. “I’m here, Babe,” he told her - those three words a simple reminder but exactly what she needed to hear. But then he continued on, giving her even more, and she realized that his reassurance was just as much for him as it was for her. “I’m exactly where I want to be, and I’m not going anywhere.”


End file.
